


The Show Must Go On

by imnotpoppunk



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Bandom - Freeform, Dark subjects, Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, Gay, Grease - Freeform, Love/Hate, M/M, Physical Abuse, Ryden, Theatre AU, Therapy, Verbal Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6944104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imnotpoppunk/pseuds/imnotpoppunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan Ross is dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship and a trial that was dismissed. He has a college degree he's proud of, but unfortunately no job to show for it. </p><p>Brendon Urie has been cast as the lead in an off-Broadway production of Grease, but his diva-like tendencies have landed him in a tight spot. </p><p>And though they couldn't be more different, they just might be the solutions to each other's problems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Because this does deal with a past abusive relationship, there will be mentions of some violence/ potentially triggering scenes, but no graphic depictions of anything. 
> 
> There will be explicitly sexual scenes somewhere along the lines.

“And why do you think you let that happen?” 

The words leave his lips and for a moment I freeze because I can’t believe he’s actually asking me that question. Because that’s what everyone else has been asking me. I would have thought that a therapist would know better than to ask a stupid question like that. Yes, I let it happen. Sure, I just let her hit me. She was an MMA fighter and everyone fucking knew that, but sure, it was my fault. I guess I “let it happen” because she was strong as fuck and I thought I was in love with her.

The older man in front of me is suddenly much more gross and off-putting than I thought when I first walked in the office. If anyone was asking me, which they weren’t, I would have said that all therapists should be required to leave outdated opinions and ideologies behind. I avert my eyes to the chartreuse rug beneath my feet, which isn’t much better of a sight. 

“Ryan?” he prompts again, because I haven’t answered his question. I bring my eyes up to meet his because, yes, the polite thing to do is look him in the eye. 

“It’s not like I just let it happen,” I say, calmly. “It’s not that simple.” 

My mind falls to one day in particular. I had just come home to find Jac already in my apartment. It wasn’t too much of a surprise because she had a key to the place. I think in some ways, I was already subconsciously afraid of her because we never even had a proper conversation about the key. She asked and I had it made, because I didn’t want the confrontation of an argument. But this time . . . this time I came home to find her rummaging through my kitchen. I asked her what was the matter, and what she was looking for, and she went fucking off on me. Said I put one of her good cups in the dishwasher, and apparently it wasn’t dishwasher safe. I apologized profusely, but I still ended up in the emergency room that night to get my hand stitched up. She hit me with the broken cup and the glass sliced my hand open– she apologized, even had the waterworks going. 

I think that was the first time I ever saw through her tears. 

“So then, why don’t you explain it?” he asks. I take another deep breath and sink back into the armchair for the first time. I didn’t even realize I was leaning over so far at first. 

“Well–“ 

“We can start next week.” 

“What?” I look up, confused, as a Dr. Callahan points to the clock on the wall. My fifty minutes is up. I sigh, both in relief and frustration, before I stand up and exchange formalities. My next appointment is next Thursday, he’ll have his secretary call and leave a reminder on Wednesday. I don’t think I need the reminder, but I thank him anyway before I head out of the office. 

I meet Spencer in the waiting room, who is still waiting for me. I don’t smile when I seem him like he does when he sees me. He’s here against his will. He got me into this mess with talking about stuff, and if I had to suffer through it, then so did he. 

“How’d it go?” he asks, once we’re out of the office and descending the stairs. I can’t help but notice the mustiness of the air in the stairwell, and it puts me in an even worse mood. The thing is, I really hate fighting with Spencer. I hate the tension between us more than anything. 

“Not well,” I mutter, my lips taut as I push through the door leading to the outside. I keep walking ahead of him until I get to the driver’s side of the car. I honestly should have had him drive us here, since this was all his doing, but I had to drop him off and head right to work. 

About six months ago, when Spencer found out that Jac was as abusive as she was, he immediately convinced me to go to the authorities. It made me nervous as hell because it wasn’t very often you hear about a guy getting abused by a girl, whether she was an MMA fighter or not. That’s not an exaggeration either– she was an actual fighter that actually fought. 

Yet somehow that didn’t matter when it came to a trial. 

I was able to get that restraining order when I finally broke up with her, sure, but they never did anything to her. She never got in trouble for treating me the way she did, not even a simple slap on the wrist. We brought up the instance where I had to get my hand stitched up, because it was the only one where I had physical evidence of an injury . . . but the hospital reports had it down as an accident. The courts obviously didn’t want to hear that I lied for the sake of my own safety. Jac didn’t necessarily win the case, formally, they just dismissed it with a claim of there not being “enough evidence” for a fair trial. But I still feel like she won. 

So that was how it ended. With me being the son of a bitch who couldn’t stand up to a woman. I could go on and on for days about sexism and whatnot, but the bottom line was that it still made me feel like shit. Everyone else thinks they could have handled her, could have walked away with ease. And not to sound cliché, but they just didn’t get it. 

In a round about way, Spencer was the reason that my parents who loved Jac didn’t talk to me anymore. The reason that the last of our friends that we fucking grew up with wouldn’t stop teasing me. Of course I was going to be bitter about it. 

“I talked to Dr. Callahan a lot back when I was dealing with shit in high school – you remember that, don’t you?” Spencer says, his voice calm like he’s trying to put me at ease. 

“Well, he’s still acting like everyone else,” I sigh, keeping my brows drawn in as I focus on the road in front of me. “He asked me why I let it happen, Spencer. I’m so tired of talking about this, I just . . . Fuck.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says, in a quiet voice that makes me feel a little bad for being angry with him. He really has apologized a million times. I know in my heart that he’s only been trying to help but I’m just . . . I’m done with his help. 

“I don’t think I’m going to see him again,” I explain. Spencer stays silent, but out of the corner of my eye I can see him nodding. He’s not arguing with me. Good. 

\---

I have a bachelor’s degree in English literature. I wanted to be a university professor, but I couldn’t afford to continue with my Ph.D. Even still, I should have been able to get some sort of normal 9-5 job with a semi-decent pay. Everyone said that most places just look for a degree, but don’t care what that degree is in. I think it’s just one big fucking lie. 

Because somehow, despite the money I put into a college education, and the shiny frame with my Bachelor’s degree hanging over the couch in my one-bedroom apartment, I'm working as a part-time car-hop at Sonic. Don’t get me wrong, the roller skates were cool at first, but the more time that goes by, the more annoying they become. 

I hold a small drink tray in between my arm and my hip as I glide across the lot and up to the bulky SUV I need to get to. The driver rolls her window down, showing that she's this middle-aged woman with uneven streaks of blonde through her hair. 

“One large chocolate shake?” I ask, getting ready to hand the drink to her. She frowns, shaking her head. 

“I didn’t order a chocolate shake, I wanted strawberry,” she says. Doesn’t even bother trying to be nice about it. I take a deep breath, trying to force a smile even though these sorts of customers annoy me to no end. It really doesn’t take that much effort to not be rude. I even glance down at the receipt I’m holding, the one that clearly shows she ordered chocolate. 

“I’m sorry about that, ma’am, I’ll be right back,” I say, and I pretend not to notice that she’s rolling her eyes and muttering some very not-nice things under her breath. I push off and skate back over to the building, ready to step back in and figure out what the hell happened, but gravity had other ideas. 

The toe stop on my right skate catches the edge of the curb, and within a second, I'm falling flat on my face, chocolate shake flying everywhere. The force of the fall leaves me winded for a moment or two and I stay lying on the ground until I feel like I have enough dignity to pick myself back up. 

“Dude just ate shit,” I hear a voice coming from one of the nearby tables under the awning. I wince, thinking that maybe if I stay lying down, the ground will just open up and swallow me whole. 

“Ryan? What the hell are you doing?” Another, more familiar voice bellows. I groan, forcing myself to get up and assess the fact that I’m now covered in chocolate milkshake. I sit back on my knees, still grimacing as I look up at my manager, Zack. He’s red-in-the-face and looks like he’s about to blow up at me any moment. 

“It was an accident, I slipped,” I say, calmly. I avert my eyes, because his are boring into me and it’s making me uncomfortable. 

“The customer at number 14 just pushed her button again to complain that the service was slow, what is going on out here?” he demands to know, and I look over my shoulder to give a look of disgust to the stupid lady in that stupid SUV. 

“I literally just came from her car,” I say, only slightly defensive. I don’t want this to be a bigger deal than it actually is. It’s really not a big deal. “I brought her the shake and she said she didn’t want it, she wanted strawberry.” 

“Then why didn’t you bring her a strawberry?” 

I scoff unintentionally and Zack glares. 

“She didn’t order – she ordered the chocolate,” I say, because really, all this fuss about a shake should not be happening. Zack knew how customers could be bitchy. Why was he siding with her? 

“I think you should clock out,” Zack says, and my stomach drops. That’s not a warning or a ‘you’re fired’ but I still need to finish my shift, I need the hours– 

“Okay,” I say, not wanting to fight him on it. It’s not fair and I don’t understand why he’s doing this, but I skate back inside. I take off my chocolate–stained apron and clock out, avoiding the questioning gazes of my coworkers at all costs. Zack passes me as I leave the building, but I fully avoid eye contact with him, too. 

I sit down on one of the benches, unlacing my skates and thinking to myself that getting to leave early might be a blessing in disguise because my feet are fucking killing me–

“That looked like a pretty nasty fall, man,” says a guy at the table across from me. I frown and look up, embarrassed by my accident and not wanting to have to talk to anyone about it. Especially not with strangers who are just making fun of me, anyway. 

The voice belongs to this guy with a short but scruffy looking beard and a pair of worn-out flip flops on his feet. He doesn’t appear to be malicious, but the guy sitting next to him is sporting this shit-eating grin. 

“I’m fine,” I mutter to myself. 

“Did you just get fired?” the guy asks. I roll my eyes, because that’s really not their business. They probably heard everything Zack said, because he wasn’t exactly discreet about it. Great. 

“No,” I say defensively. 

“It looked like you did,” the other guy points out. My eyes narrow as I turn my attention toward him. He’s got big brown eyes and plush lips curled into a smirk. I would have thought he was handsome if it wasn’t for the fact that he came off so disdainful. 

“Be nice, Brendon, Jesus,” the other guy scoffs. He turns to the guy– Brendon, apparently– and he mutters something that I can’t hear to him. Brendon rolls his eyes, his smirk gone in an instant. I don’t know what his friend said to him, but I kind of want to thank him. “How old are you?” 

“What?” I say, blinking at him. It’s kind of an odd question to ask out of the blue. I don’t know these guys and I don’t know if they’re up to anything. 

“If you’ve just been fired–“ 

“I wasn’t fired.” 

“Well, your boss sounds like an ass, and we could hook you up with a job,” he says, nodding. His smile is friendly enough, but I don’t know if I trust him enough to just accept whatever offer he’s trying to make. I’ve been on job searches and know better than most that jobs don’t just fall out of the sky. 

“We don’t even know him, Jon,” Brendon mutters to his friend. He scowls and leans his elbow against the table, clearly not thrilled by the fact that Jon is still trying to talk to me. 

“Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers,” Jon says, with a bite to his tone. Brendon’s eyes flicker towards me for a moment before he sighs and sits up. Jon looks back over at me and flashes a friendly smile. “Sit with us a moment?” 

I nod, warily, before I make my way over to the pair. It’s just a conversation; I don’t think that it can really hurt anything to find out what they’re offering. 

“See, the thing is, we work at the theater downtown,” Jon says, stating it like fact, and I try to rattle my brain and remember if I’ve ever been to a theater downtown. “Brendon’s a fucking diva and–“

“I’m not a–“ 

“Anyway,” Jon clears his throat and shoots Brendon a look. Brendon rolls his eyes and scoffs and yeah, I can totally see him being a diva. “So our stage manager’s quit because of him, and he’s been given an ultimatum: find a new one that doesn’t suck, or his understudy gets the role.” 

“Oh . . . okay?” I mumble, because it sounds like a lot of drama– I mean, obviously, but . . . I can’t help but wonder what Brendon could have possibly done to drive away their stage manager. Why would I want to fill a role like that? Did I even want to know what kinds of things a diva does? 

Brendon still looks pissed off as he stand up, ready to leave all of a sudden. He looks like he’s given up on me already. 

“Come on Jon, it’s a lost fucking cause. Two days to find a stage manager is a fucking joke anyway,” he grumbles. Jon grabs him by the elbow and pulls him back down into a sitting position. 

“Dude, I’m trying to fucking help you. You’re too good of an actor to let fucking Brent take your lead role,” he hisses at his friend. At least I think they’re friends. At this point, it’s kind of hard to tell. 

“Whatever,” Brendon mumbles, his brown eyes flickering back to me. “So do you know anything about stage managing?” 

I actually start to smile to myself, because yes, I actually do. I acted as stage manager for both my junior and senior years of high school. Those jobs were several years ago, but if these guys were desperate then maybe that would suffice. 

“Yeah, a little bit,” I nod. “I’ve got a bachelor’s degree.” 

They don’t seem necessarily impressed, but Jon gives me a slight nod of approval before he starts talking logistics and when I need to come by and meet the director, etcetera, etcetera.


	2. Chapter Two

I would have been lying if I said I didn’t like the time I spent stage-managing in high school. It was a stressful job, but I enjoyed it. The only thing I’m worried about with this new job is that I won’t be cut out for it. It’s been almost six years since I last set foot in a theatre and on top of that, my experience was hardly professional. Also, the teacher in charge of the theatre department supervised me almost the whole time. I pointed this out to Jon and Brendon, but they seemed to think that I would be fine. Maybe they were more desperate than they let on. 

At home, every conversation from the day just swirls around in my head because so much has happened in the span of the day. I decide I don’t want to go to therapy anymore, I get half-fired from my job, and then a new opportunity shows up right after? It sounds almost too good to be true, and as I realize this, I have half a mind to call Jon at the number he gave me and tell him I don’t want the job. But I don’t, because turning it down before I even get the chance to speak with someone from the theatre is a dumb idea, and I can’t afford to be turning down job opportunities. 

I sit down on the couch in my living room, taking a deep breath as I look around. Everything in my apartment is neat and clean and I pride myself in keeping it that way. Everything else in my life fell apart, but at least my apartment didn’t. Ha. 

The real story, though, is that as soon as I stopped seeing Jac, everything reminded me of her and it freaked me out. I had to clean up the place, get all remnants of her out. On top of that, keeping everything clean kept me busy while the trial was going on. It still keeps me busy now. 

I look to my left and I can see past the slits in the vertical blinds through the sliding glass door. I’ve got two pots that each house a tomato plant. They’ve gotten pretty big and leafy, but I haven’t noticed any fruit coming off yet. I checked it every day to see if I could find a new tomato growing, but it’s been fruitless so far. Literally. Ha. 

The next morning, Spencer knocks on my door twice and I barely hear him because I’ve just come back inside from watering the plants. I close the sliding glass door and step across the living room to get to the front door. 

Spencer asked me once if he could just get a key to my place, because he comes over so often. I told him no, though. I didn’t want anyone having a key to my place. Trust issues, sure. He told me I didn’t have anything to worry about because he’s nothing like Jac. But then again I didn’t think Jac would do the things she did, either. 

“What’s up?” I ask him, in a less than enthusiastic tone. I leave the door open and he comes in on his own, kicking off his shoes. 

“Just stopping by to check on you as usual,” he shrugs. I purse my lips, not liking his response. When I turn back to him, his lips fall like he was smiling, trying to make a joke. “Ry, I’m joking, I just . . . Never mind. How was work yesterday?” 

“Fine. I think I got fired . . . close to it anyway,” I shrug. 

“Fired? Ryan– “

“Don’t worry about me, okay? God, you never used to worry about me this much,” I scoff, trying to shrug off his clinginess. I mean, Jesus Christ. 

“Well, that was before–“

“Before what?” I challenge, because I know what he’s thinking, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t have the balls to say it out loud. Spencer opens his mouth to say something, but then he deflates again, shaking his head, and I start to feel a little bad about snapping at him. “I’m sorry, but I’m fine by myself. I’ve always been fine by myself, in fact, I’m pretty sure I prefer it that way.” 

I add an awkward bit of a chuckle at the end to show him that I’m totally fine with my own introversion. I mean, I am. I really am. It’s nice that Spencer wants to spend all this time with me, nice to know he’s sorry for pushing me into reporting Jac, but we both know he meant well by those things. I just can’t help but feel suffocated by him. 

“I’m not trying to upset you, Ry,” he says, and I let out a long sigh. 

“It’s fine, let’s just . . . Let’s move past it, okay? I’d rather just leave all this stuff in the past and fast forward to the part where you’re back to treating me like a normal human,” I say, grinning and hoping that he’ll just grin too. All this drama would be so much more bearable if we all just stopped talking about it all the time. 

“Alright,” Spencer says, quietly. He shifts his weight and takes in a breath. It’s like he’s resetting, trying to act casual. “So what happened at work?” 

“Some lady complained about me, and I tripped and fell,” I say, my eyes darting up as Spencer stifles a laugh. I want to glare at him, but really, it is kind of funny now that I think of it. It wasn’t funny in the moment obviously, but now we could laugh. Also Spencer laughing at me was actually something I really appreciated. 

“You fell?” He chuckles and I shrug, laughing a bit with him. 

“Flat on my face. Chocolate shake flying everywhere,” I confirm. Spencer just shakes his head and I can tell just by looking at him that he’s picturing it. Immediately it puts me at ease because yes, finally he’s laughing at me again without being afraid of hurting my feelings. I want to go on and continue telling the story when my phone rings. 

The number is unknown, but the area code is local so I answer it anyway. I hold a finger up to Spencer letting him know I’m taking the call and he nods and makes himself comfortable on my couch. 

“Hello?” I ask, trying to maintain a polite tone. 

“Hey, it’s Brendon, my director wants to meet you,” he says, so abruptly that I have to pause for a moment and try to remember who Brendon is. Oh, that’s right. 

“Oh, um, great! When?” I ask. 

“I told him you could meet now,” he says, in a bored tone and I almost scoff. 

“Now? I’m still at home, I need to get–“ 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever it’s really not a big deal, we can come over there,” he says, like he hasn’t just invited both himself and some director I’ve never met to my home. I reaffirm my impression of him from yesterday and decide that I really don’t like him, and if he weren’t offering me a job, I’d have told him to fuck off already. I’d like to think that I would have, anyway. 

“To my house?” I ask, cringing at how stupid the question sounds when it leaves my lips. I swear I can hear Brendon rolling his eyes in the way that he sighs. 

“Yes, like, as soon as possible? I don’t know if you realize, but we’re on a schedule here and if you don’t want to –“ 

“No, it’s fine, um . . . it’s fine,” `I sigh. He grumbles something about needing my address and I rattle it off to him. By the time I hang up and turn back to Spencer, he’s already giving me questioning looks. 

“What was that all about?” he asks. I sigh and sit down next to him. 

“I ran into these guys at Sonic yesterday and they want to hire me as a stage manager for this professional theatre production. I don’t know a whole lot about it, but I guess they want to meet with me like . . . now?” I say, shaking my head at how crazy it sounds. Spencer nods slowly. 

“Well, I guess it’s a job, isn’t it?” he says, slowly. “Do you want me to head out, then?” 

“No, please stay,” I say, rather quickly. It’s a big change from me being all frustrated by his presence. But honestly I’d rather have Spencer there if some diva and a guy I don’t know are planning on entering my house. It would make me feel a hell of a lot more at ease. 

“Um, okay, sure,” he shrugs, and I look down at my clothes and groan before disappearing into my own room to pick out something nicer. I pace around the apartment, making sure everything looked neat and clean for company and all the while, I’m complaining to Spencer about how Brendon seems rude, but the only reason I’m doing this is because his friend Jon was nice and I needed something if Sonic planned on actually firing me. Really, I was in a position where I’d be crazy to pass up any sort of job opportunity. 

The doorbell rings approximately when I expect it to. I gasp anyway and tell Spencer to act normal, even though there’s nothing abnormal about him. I rush to the door, take a deep breath and pull it open. Standing in the doorway are two people: Brendon and a shorter guy with blonde hair. The director? I guess. 

“Hi, I’m Ryan,” I say, reaching out to shake the guy’s hand. He seems to like my introduction and gives my hand a firm shake, and smiles. 

“Nice to meet you, my name is Patrick,” he says, warmly, and I invite him in, with a scowling Brendon behind him. As I close the door behind Brendon. I notice that Brendon’s dressed in yoga pants and a shirt that’s slightly too short on him. The fact that I’ve noticed such a thing makes my cheeks burn red and I try to shake off any lingering mental images and make a note to myself to only look at Brendon from the waist– up.

“This is, uh, this is my friend, Spencer,” I say, motioning towards the man on my couch before I lead Brendon and Patrick to the dining room table to sit down. I pull out the résumé I’ve left on the table and slide it over to him. He seems impressed that I’m so prepared but Brendon just crosses his arms over his chest. 

“This is rather impressive, Ryan,” he confirms. “And as I’m sure Brendon’s mentioned, we are in a bit of a situation where we need to hire fast . . . so I’m going to ask you to work for us.” 

I just sort of stare because I’m not expecting things to go so well so quickly. I glance over at Brendon and he stares down at the table. 

“We had a bit of an incident with our last stage manager, didn’t we, Brendon?” Patrick asks in a bit of a patronizing tone. Brendon glares up at him. “But this time, Brendon’s deal is that he must make you feel at home at all times or else his part is going to the understudy . . . isn’t that right Brendon?–“ Brendon rolls his eyes–“So you have nothing to worry about, Ryan. 

I grin and nod and he goes on to start discussing some of the more technical aspects of the show. Some of the terms go way over my head but I just smile and nod and make a mental note to look some things up later so I don’t seem like an idiot when I actually go into the theatre. The meeting doesn’t go on for too much longer. Patrick gives me a copy of the script and his contact information, along with a schedule for rehearsals. It felt like a bit of an information overload, but I think I kept up with everything pretty well. Patrick seemed a hell of a lot nicer than Brendon, nicer even than Jon, and that definitely put me at ease because he was the one I’d be answering to anyway. 

After he was done giving me all the information, he left with Brendon, leaving me alone with Spencer. 

“Well that was . . . interesting,” Spencer muttered once they were gone. He wrinkled his nose a bit. “Was that guy seriously wearing yoga pants?” 

“Uh, I think so, I didn’t notice,” I mumble, warding off images of Brendon’s pants and they way they clung to his ass. Not that I was looking. I totally wasn’t looking at another guy’s ass. Spencer just chuckles and shakes his head because he clearly thinks Brendon is ridiculous. 

“I thought you said he was mean to you,” he teases, and my smile fades. His fades just as quickly, and I think he realizes why sooner than I do. My mind reels quickly because I’m offended, but I don’t want him to go back to walking on eggshells around me. 

“He was, he’s a bitch,” I say quickly, forcing a smile. Spencer looks uncomfortable for a moment, then just laughs and I change the subject as quickly as I possibly can.


End file.
